Asianart.com | Exhibitions
Introduction | Chag
Dai-chien: Gallery |
Exhibition Details
CHANG DAI-CHIEN BIOGRAPHY
Chang Dai-chien was born on May 10, 1899 in Nei-chiang, Szechwan as Chuan Chi, the ninth child of a wealthy family who had converted to Roman Catholicism. Resisting his family's efforts to push him into a business career, Chang briefly entered a Buddhist monastery before beginning serious study of Chinese calligraphy and painting at the age of 19. After an extended visit to Kyoto, Japan, Chang settled in Shanghai in 1919 to study with prominent artists Tseng Hsi (c.1861-1930) and Li Jui-ching (1867- 1920). In a training method typical among art students in China, Chang made many arduous copies of artistic masterworks, beginning to develop his legendary (and notorious) ability to recreate works from diverse periods. Leaving China in the wake of the Civil War of 1949, Chang sojourned in Hong Kong, Taiwan, India and Argentina before settling in 1954 into a 30-acre compound outside Sao Paolo, Brazil that he named the "Garden of Eight Virtues." Chang continued to exhibit his art in the US and Europe, traveling to Paris in 1956 for a breakthrough show of his paintings at the Musee d'Art Moderne. Chang's meeting with Pablo Picasso during this trip was given considerable attention in the press as a meeting of the masters of Western and Eastern art. A dam construction project in the mid-1960s that would flood his home caused Chang to leave Brazil. California had impressed Chang during his numerous trips to the state, the first of which was in 1954. Chang moved to the Monterey Peninsula in 1967, eventually a home in Carmel and another on the scenic 17-mile drive. Chang relocated to Taiwan in 1976, spending the last seven years of his life painting and creating his garden home known as the "Abode of Illusions." He never returned to California after 1979. Chang's artistic legacy is immense, controversial and complicated. Beyond the difficulty posed by a 'life
spent in nearly perpetual exile and travel, Chang was a highly social personality who enjoyed his fame
and actively contributed to the creation of an heroic persona. As a young artist he adopted the posture
of bearded sage, reveling in unconventionality and romanticism, the beginning of a life-long process to
create a unique aura that often overshadowed his artistic efforts. The exhibition Chang
Dai-chien in
California will present an often overlooked element of Chang's legacy, demonstrating his status as a truly
global artist. |
Asianart.com | Exhibitions
Introduction | Chag
Dai-chien: Gallery |
Exhibition Details